I always thought my two kiddos would be the best of friends. I thought they would magically be instilled with love and friendship. Oh, was I ever naive. To be honest, they do get along better than most siblings, but they have their fair share of fights. The fights are usually over toys. Sometimes they fight over ownership of almost anything...even a scrap piece of paper. So instead of trying to figure out who is to blame, or how to resolve the issue, we simply say something like:
This toy is causing a lot of problems...maybe it needs to go to toy jail....
Usually they beg for another chance, and depending on the intensity of the arguing I may or may not give them another chance.
Toy jail used to be on top of our refrigerator, but I got tired of seeing a random assortment of annoying toys and odds and ends up there. So, now toy jail is in our garage.
We haven't figured out how long a sentence a toy should serve because usually once the toy is taken away it is forgotten. Sometimes the toy's sentence is transferred to Goodwill or the Salvation Army! :)
In all fairness, I should say I heard about this idea somewhere else...not sure where...
That is it for today...I am off to sentence a truck!
Update....I stole this concept from Parent Hack's Melissa! Here is the link..
http://www.parenthacks.com/2008/06/toy-jail-emphas.html
2 comments:
great idea! i actually do something similar, but didn't think of calling it *toy jail*! our garage is FULL of toys that have caused a fight. the funny thing is, after a day or two they forget about it altogether!!
thanks for the tip, friend!
I had toys that got "thrown away" when I was 3. I still haven't forgotten it. I wasn't fighting, I just wouldn't pick up when I was asked. It was so awful to see my beloved toys in the trash can. I learned my lesson for sure!
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